Lizzie Annie MN23 is a 34ft Aldous smack built in 1906.
Colne Match results;
- 1972 1st COCK OF THE COLNE
- 1972 Gerard Swift Skippers Trophy
- 1977 3rd Xanthe Trophy
- 1980 1st smack over the start line Hammond Bell Trophy
- 1985 Best restoration Charles Morse Trophy
- 1986 3rd Xanthe Trophy
- 1995 2nd Arthur Bowles Cup
- 1996 1st COCK OF THE COLNE
- 1996 Bob Fawkes Skippers Trophy
- 1998 Seamanship Lowlands Cup
- 1998 Most traditionally turned out smack David Gowing Memorial Trophy
- 2000 2nd Arthur Bowles Cup
- 2001 2nd Arthur Bowles Cup
- 2007 1st smack over the start line Hammond Bell Trophy
- 2019 1st small smack or bawley Brian Percival & Brian Webb Cup
- 2019 1st smack over the start line Hammond Bell Trophy

©Tim Bees.


A glass plate by ©Douglas Went.

Fully rigged auxiliary smacks line the waterside and an auxiliary barge waits to go on the blocks for refit at Walter Cook and Sons yard. A sailing barge from the mill lies beyond, against the town quay. Fishermen sit yarning on the river wall; men of the river, whose principal work was dredging oysters and beam trawling for flatfish within the River Blackwater. Their small smacks varied from the chubby, transom sterned example at the head of the line, to the narrow or beamy counter sterned cutters. Many were old West Mersea smacks, sold upriver when the owners bought larger, or gave up fishing. Sail lingered amongst Maldon fishermen until the 1960s, though all had a propeller tucked under the quarter after 1945, usually driven by an old car engine, to help them up and down the winding upper reaches in calms, or with a foul wind. Their successors were a nondescript collection of old motor shrimpers from Leigh, converted ships’ boats and launches. Rowboats and gun punts lie on the hard, for the old Maldon fishing families of the Pitts, Claydons, Keebles, Handleys, Woodcrafts and many others are fond of winter wildfowling.
Smoke drifts from the chimney of Sadd’s sawmills and the scene breathes the peace of a mid-week Essex waterside before sailing was popularised. [JL]
The nearest barge is NELLIE PARKER. Smack MN21 MAUD is bow-on in front of the NELLIE PARKER. The right-most smack is CK482 KINGFISHER with MN23 LIZZIE ANNIE in front of her –
The man on the left is Reg Pitt – my brother! From Elsie Pitt, 7 September 2012.
